Tasmania’s woodchip industry is uncompetitive, overseas demand has dried up, and Australian plants are closing. So why on earth are loggers still talking about the closed Triabunna woodchip mill as if it could be reopened?

Julia Gillard came to the member for Denison with a curious proposal. Federal MP Andrew Wilkie is now spilling the beans on the secret deal — and why he ultimately tore up an agreement once she stabbed him in the back.

As Tasmanians prepare to vote in the state election on March 15, Crikey names the most powerful people behind the scenes — the svengalis, staffers, journalists and businesspeople running the apple isle.

The Labor Party is under attack from both sides, writes La Trobe University professorial fellow Dennis Altman at Inside Story. Voters trust the Liberals more to manage the economy; progressives are increasingly turning to the Greens.

When Ricky Muir came into the Senate, everyone expected him to vote with the Coalition, at least on national security. Boy, were they wrong. Crikey intern Aron Lewin and writer-at-large Guy Rundle explain.

Some 55 millionaires paid no tax at all in 2012-13, and they claimed an average of $700 in benefits. Economist and freelance journalist Jason Murphy says that doesn’t necessarily mean they are rorters, but the chances are pretty good …

Many voters, including Liberal voters, want Bronwyn Bishop gone from politics altogether. And few people are buying the government’s efforts to link a carbon price and higher electricity prices, Essential Report shows.

Some murders are not just an act of private anger, but are intended to send an explicit message to a far broader audience. We call those murders terrorism, except when the victims are women and children.

The powerful SCG Trust has finally revealed its plans for Moore Park — and surprise, surprise, they involve a massive land grab from those who enjoy the public open space. Vivienne Skinner a member of the Centennial Parklands Community Consultative Committee, reports.

Canberra: a great place to live, or akin to being embalmed alive in a dull, overly planned city of public servants? We asked our readers to decide, and the verdict was clear. Read the winners in our Crikey comp here …

It looks like the ACT will pass same-sex marriage laws, and the feds will try to knock them down in the High Court. ANU constitutional law lecturer Ryan Goss looks at the legal aspects of the looming stoush.

Labor lost its grip on the electorate covering the south of the national capital amid the wreckage of the Whitlam and Keating governments, but few people suggest it will go that way again this year, writes William Bowe.

Despite unfavourable redistributions and a statewide swing in 2010, Bill Hayden’s old seat has returned to safe Labor hands since the famous interruption of Pauline Hanson. It is William Bowe’s seat of the week.

Cuts to EDOs around the country have inspired fund-raising events, including an indigenous art auction in the NT. Will Brandis, a self-declared lover of the arts, see fit to buy any of these beautiful works of Aboriginal art?

Why does Australia continue to fail Aboriginal Australia at such gross levels? John B. Lawrence SC, a Darwin-based barrister and immediate past president of the Northern Territory Bar Association, explains.

Despite ominous warnings from the LNP of the “chaos” that could be caused by overzealous crossbenchers, Labor has formed minority government fair and square. And the Queensland Parliament in no stranger to minority governments.

The South Australian Liberals have been in the electoral wilderness for 36 of the last 50 years. A Liberal elder statesman explains what the problem might be, writes InDaily political reporter Tom Richardson.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has announced plans to form his own political party. But will his popularity in South Australia translate to a national party? Freelance journalist Casey Briggs reports from South Australia.

The South Australian Liberal Party is trying to bastardise the Westminster system further to deliver it the results it wants. But Crikey’s Poll Bludger says that’s a lost cause — it’s time to think bigger.

Tasmania’s woodchip industry is uncompetitive, overseas demand has dried up, and Australian plants are closing. So why on earth are loggers still talking about the closed Triabunna woodchip mill as if it could be reopened?

Julia Gillard came to the member for Denison with a curious proposal. Federal MP Andrew Wilkie is now spilling the beans on the secret deal — and why he ultimately tore up an agreement once she stabbed him in the back.

As Tasmanians prepare to vote in the state election on March 15, Crikey names the most powerful people behind the scenes — the svengalis, staffers, journalists and businesspeople running the apple isle.

The Labor Party is under attack from both sides, writes La Trobe University professorial fellow Dennis Altman at Inside Story. Voters trust the Liberals more to manage the economy; progressives are increasingly turning to the Greens.

The brutal dismissal of the CEO and chairman of WorkSafe in Victoria over a water contamination scare left some breathless. Did the Premier go too far in publicly calling them liars? The Mandarin examines.

The Greens’ electoral success in Prahran was due to a number of demographic factors, with the seat an interesting mixture of hip young things and old money. Sounds like a certain federal Sydney seat we know …

Policies are made in Canberra with the best of intentions, but in remote Western Australia, the outcome is very different to what politicians imagined. East Kimberley Homelessness Project co-ordinator Rachelle Irving details life on the ground.

Half of white rural Australia is a drain, but we overwhelmingly agree that we want it to persevere, because people live there, have made lives rich in tradition and memory there. The attack on Aboriginal Australia is about skin colour, plain and simple.

Yesterday morning, former Western Australian treasurer Troy Buswell resigned, ending his political career on his own terms. Unfortunately for Labor, the resulting byelection is unlikely to further ruffle the state’s already embattled Liberal government.

Palmer’s spent half a million on ads. And for those who don’t watch ads, he’s spent weeks playing the buffoon, earning him more coverage than any other party running on Saturday, write Myriam Robin and Ania Dutka.

Western Australians get another crack at the Senate election, and their dissatisfaction with the Abbott government is likely to translate into a win for the Left. But will it matter for the Abbott government?

If the wise heads who developed the euro had lived through the GFC and its aftermath, they would not have so discounted the importance of unique monetary policy for each unique economy within Europe, writes economist and journalist Jason Murphy.

If the wise heads who developed the euro had lived through the GFC and its aftermath, they would not have so discounted the importance of unique monetary policy for each unique economy within Europe, writes economist and journalist Jason Murphy.

Julian Assange has revealed a lot that powerful governments do not want us to know. But what should be made of the rape allegations against him? PhD candidate and former UN adviser Felicity Ruby explains.

Paranoia is now on the loose in relation to pilots mental health issues, ranging from the remote possibility that two suicidal pilots might find themselves operating the same flight to misunderstandings about what the cabin attendant is going to do.

Jordan shares land borders with Syria and Iraq and is struggling to deal with the war. But things might get even worse if the Islamic State decides to try to expand its caliphate, writes freelance journalist Tim Robertson.

Yes, the situation in Gaza is grim and its people need food and shelter. But they also need a reason to believe in hope for the future, write Majed Abusalema, national leader of Students for Justice in Palestine in Norway, and James Rose, founder of The Kick Project.

The recent conflict with Israel has left the Gaza Strip in a shambles, with piles of rubble where apartment buildings used to be. Freelance journalist Nigel O’Connor finds out what life is like — and finds it’s about to get a lot worse.

Could Egypt be doing more to broker a peace deal between Israel and Gazan militants? Rachel Williamson, freelance journalist in Cairo, says although Egypt used to support the Palestinian cause, its fear of Hamas has caused it to take a step back.

When Brazilians watch soccer, they are not individuals watching sport. They are a heaving, unified glorious mass with a single mind — and who can protest when that sort of thing is going on? Crikey’s man on the ground Django Merope Synge reports from Rio.

This year’s World Cup is expected to cost the Brazilian government a whopping $14 billion, but it could be worth $30 billion to the country’s GDP. And don’t forget the sponsors. Crikey intern Jake Stevens follows the money …

The Western media is (belatedly) outraged over the abduction of Nigerian schoolgirls. But an international reaction is exactly what terrorist group Boko Haram wants, writes UN adviser Robert Johnson in Nairobi.

The US prosecution of FIFA is extraordinary hypocrisy from a country that treats systemic and constant criminality by the world’s biggest banks as the financial equivalent of a parking offence, Glenn Dyer and Bernard Keane write.

The American media and public are outraged by Hillary Clinton’s decision to use her personal email while she was secretary of state. But when it was revealed our pollies use encrypted messaging, all we got was a collective shrug, writes Crikey intern Brihony Tulloch.